Summerwode, p.40
Summerwode, page 40
part #4 of The Books of the Wode Series
As they came closer, another crimson pavilion became visible. More guards were in evidence, a loose ring of mailed menace Robyn wasn’t keen to broach. But as he hesitated, Alundel took his sleeve and pulled him on, through the impassive guards and closer upon another periphery of personages. These lingered, standing and seated upon benches. Some held parchments and quills; others held items as varied as a jewelled goblet and a well-worn saddle.
A familiar, broad-shouldered form—clad in stark black and standing apart from the waiting horde by chance or design—was particularly treacherous to Robyn’s composure.
The scarlet cross on Gamelyn’s tabard clashed with that of the banners, the latter muting his hair despite a brilliant shaft of sunlight. His gaze was fixed, impassive, and bloodless, upon midair—an expression Robyn loathed.
Give me what paltry weapons I have, Robyn Hood.
The soft memory from winter snuck in and hamstrung Robyn. The reasons for it. Weapons. Defences. None of them gratuitous, here and now. Nay, understandable.
He didn’t want to understand. I’m tired of wanting, waiting, wondering if this time you’ll choose t’ poison ower me. I hate what you are here, what it means.
But memory made the latter into lie, as well.
Way I see it, Mari? Gisbourne is the one as kept our Gamelyn alive.
Was this how loyalty’s ropes were knotted, with memory and longing?
He had to stop looking at Gamelyn. Stop hoping and pay bloody attention in this vipers’ den.
Beneath the expanse of crimson roof was an ornate chair, nigh a couch. That must be the throne which housed the Royal Backside, yet no kingly presence lounged anywhere nigh to it.
“Remain here.” Alundel halted Robyn beside the motley group set to wait and strode away with a bold assurance that provoked a mutter, subdued but resentful, amidst said group. They turned their attention to Robyn, and another mutter echoed—whispers, really, flitting person to person.
Robyn ignored all of it. Instead he ambled towards Gamelyn, feigning indolence despite fancying he’d a target clout hanging between his shoulder blades. His approach bade the guards tense and, mayhap, flickered the tiniest warmth in Gamelyn’s eyes.
“Good day, Brother Templar.” Robyn knew better than to neglect any man’s title in this noble company. As a peasant lad, he’d been whipped for less. As an outlaw—even one who had gained the King’s notice and the Queen’s sanction—he’d do well to mind every detail. That fancied target clout wasn’t all that imaginary.
“And to you, master archer.” Gamelyn’s return courtesy was no less cautious. “I was told to find you. Imagine my surprise when a… mutual acquaintance informed me the Queen’s trouvère had assumed my orders for me.”
John, Robyn thought, and couldn’t help the smile. “Orders?”
“I was sent to find you by the King.” Gamelyn started to return Robyn’s half smile; instead the expression closed tighter than any vault as a broad, loud laugh rose up over to one side of the pavilion.
Robyn glanced towards the sound, where a group milled back and forth, resembling more hens pecking at scattered grain than noblemen. A quick patter of Frankish followed the laugh; the scratching “hens” separated into distinct individuals, and the bearer of that voice came barrelling through with Alundel at his heels.
Robyn—with the sudden aid of Gamelyn’s hand knotting and snatching the hem of his tunic—realised everyone save himself and the guardsmen had sunk into some semblance of a bow.
And here he’d been gawping like a serf fresh from the plough arms and, without meaning to, had broken the first of Alundel’s rules.
This time he’d not the luxury of a quick and sideways dance of disappearance into a crowd of soldiers. This time the whirlwind’s gaze sought, found, then proceeded to bear down on him, leaving no doubts to a sheer presence cloaked in a rather unlikely form. Robyn bowed his head. At least he’d not broken the second rule. The sharp-slurred Frankish kept on, still nigh bellowed as if Richard’s mam had never smacked his pate and told him Enough o’ your bawlin’!— what are you, lad, a weaner stirk?
Though from what Robyn had seen of Queen Eleanor, he doubted that “never.”
Another tug to his tunic. Harder, accompanied by a soft growl from Gamelyn, and Robyn realised he’d disregarded two more rules. Before they could be considered broken, he pressed one knee into the soft earth. Stretched fingertips down to touch and answer the tingle spreading upward through his frame—the magic, there even when a great sodding nobleman’s tent was trying to smother it—and raised his gaze, slightly agleam, to meet that of England’s King.
Those eyes widened as if surprised, going ash-grey in the sun. Like Eleanor’s, they were, but ’twas there any resemblance trailed away. He was still the Frank bull, and a handsome one, no question. But closer scrutiny proved the first impression of excess: a ferment of wine and sun and choleric blood had sent fair magnificence south to sour. That foreign gaol in which he’d spent so much time was obviously the likes of which Robyn would never grace; whilst hard work had gone amiss, the meals had been steady, leaving thick muscles lax and a girth straining at embroidered woollens despite the cinch of a massive, gold-studded leather belt. The hands hitched upon that belt gave the occasional tremor, more akin to an elder worked too long at the plough than any liege lord in his prime. The thick curling beard was ginger-yellow and grey, yet the hair on his head was the colour of plumped wheat nigh to harvest. Slicked back beneath a gold filet, it hung past his shoulders, wavy-thick and leonine.
None of it lessened the raw vitality of the man; like a slap across the face, it was.
Robyn lifted his chin, ever so slight, into the possibility. Sure, and his da would have booted his arse for such presumption, but it had been a while since Robyn’d been able to claim the luxury of listening to his da. Mostly because this one’s like had murdered him.
At Robyn’s nape, another Lord growled softly, tangled tines in Robyn’s curls, heated further the tiny gilded flame behind black eyes.
Quiet, you. Robyn didn’t let the silent chide so much as tremor his frame. You’ve picked a fine time t’ blast challenge. His Kingship en’t pissing on your boots.
Yet, the Horned Lord rumbled, and it was all Robyn could do not to smirk.
The King blinked; puzzlement, not weakness. A frown tilting his sunburnt forehead—again, more curiosity than displeasure—he snapped something in Frankish talk.
Gamelyn rose with quick grace, clasping his hands behind his back.
And damned if Robyn hadn’t almost broken another rule as the King motioned a second time, impatient and unmistakable: Up, you!
At the King’s shoulder, Alundel uttered a bland “Our liege has given you permission to rise.”
Robyn rose, just as lithe but not so quick. He also kept his hands in plain sight, used a momentary duck of head to sneak a glance sideways, first at the people gathering about this newest novelty, then to Gamelyn.
The latter was inaccessible. Gamelyn’s mind was surely present—Robyn could all but see the wheels turning—but his body might have been wandering Outremer’s deserts for all the expression he exhibited.
The King was rocking back and forth, thumbs still at his belt and gaze keen. First upon Robyn, then Gamelyn, then widening to include the people to one side and the other—a gathering Robyn dearly wanted to take to the trees over, for ’twouldn’t take much to turn them into a mob. Just as swift, the King scanned the meadow and trees beyond.
Proper predator, this one. Robyn had to approve, though it made his teeth itch.
Still looking out into the forest, King Richard spoke. “Vous êtes le frère Gui. Chevalier de l’ordre du Temple Hirst, non?”
Alundel peered at Robyn, plainly asking. Robyn gave a tiny shrug. It wasn’t so difficult to ken how Himself was asking if Gamelyn—well, Guy—was indeed Guy the Templar.
“Oui, mon roi,” Gamelyn answered, quiet.
A grunt. The King’s gaze moved from the trees to Robyn, took him in. A tiny frown, and a murmured aside to Alundel, who answered it just as soft.
Again, the spark behind Robyn’s eyes: the Horned Lord, spoiling for a row. Again, Robyn bade Him quiet.
And again, the King spoke to Alundel, a quick-clipped back-and-forth with those grey-blue eyes fixed upon Robyn the entire time. Robyn thought he caught the word “longbow”—strangely spoken, sure enough—before the King fell silent.
“The King says”—Alundel stepped closer to Robyn—“that he is pleased to finally come face to face with such a notorious longbowman, particularly since he made such an amazing shot, and not only the once from luck.”
“C’est le Gallois noir, pardi!” the King put in. More than a few of the surrounding nobles laughed, and the King crossed his arms, chuckled.
Robyn’s eyebrows quirked, and this time he did slide a look to Gamelyn. Himself the Templar didn’t look best pleased.
Alundel inserted, blander still, “King Richard also imagines you’ve more than a little of the black Welsh in your blood.”
Ah. Robyn held to the King’s gaze. “No imagining t’ be done, mon roi. I’m ower half owed t’ me mam’s blood, and proud of it.”
That gaze shifted, ash to flint. The man mightn’t have any Anglic, but no question he’d understood the tone of it. The surrounding murmurs trebled, overstated dismay. Well, the last of those rules broken, then—Robyn had spoken without leave.
He is in Our forest. You ask leave of none, here.
Not “mon roi” in thisworld was Robyn’s silent counter. Aye, he knew the way out should he have need—always did, went nowhere openly without kenning four different methods of escape—but…
But. Gamelyn, here beside him. John, unseen but no doubt amidst the onlookers stamping about, noisy as cattle. Will, Arthur, David, and Gilbert lurking in the Wode. Marion, shadowed by an insistent Much and bunged in with the Queen. And in this place—this Christian, noble place—the Queen was nobbut a woman.
So small a number against this invasion, and all of them in the open, standing uncertain ground. Robyn wasn’t used to this.
He had to… to think too much, here.
“S’approprier!” the King snorted, a sudden and unlikely smile twitching at his mouth. He took a step towards Robyn; it was all Robyn could do to stand down instinct, hold his ground. “Of you, I… eh… have understanding? Know?” The clip and slur of accent nigh made it unintelligible, but there was no mistaking the sudden jibe beneath the odd pattern of speech. “Oui, bien, of you I have knowing! ‘Le roi de la forêt’! Robin des Bois. Robyn… Hood.”
Robyn didn’t have to spare a glance for Gamelyn to feel him tense, ready for anything. As if they could do anything. Mayhap knock the Frank bull over—more feasible to take out a tree—and then hope a few of Robyn’s lads were scoping the place with arrows ready. Any way it could be parcelled, Robyn would wager the King of England calling him what sounded like king of the forest wasn’t good.
Yet Richard laughed, a short bark of questionable humour, and let out a spate of Frankish, first at Alundel, then several of the hangers-on. Orders, it would seem; a flurry of activity greeted them.
Gamelyn’s taut body relaxed, ever so slight. Unfortunately, tension restrung itself almost immediately. The sodding horn sounded again.
And it was close. Robyn’s shoulders hunched up nigh about his ears.
The King didn’t seem overly pleased either. Alundel clapped his hands over his ears and made a heartfelt plea. In clear agreement, the King gestured to a lad at his heel, who dipped a bow, turned, and disappeared between two overdressed lords. Another tuneless blare and the King grimaced, shooting more Frankish talk at Alundel.
“Our liege says,” Alundel translated, “that the lad giving instructions for the hunt is unfortunately new to his work. Of course, nothing is worth achieving that does not take much practice—often uncomfortable. He wants to know if the master archer likes music?”
“Aye, milord,” Robyn said, and breathed a gusty sign of relief as the horn was cut off midthroat. “Which that en’t.”
The King’s guffaw made it plain he understood. The crowd parted once more for the lad who’d so precipitously exited. In his hands was a crème-and-sepia beauty of a horn the likes Robyn hadn’t seen since his da had kept one beside the hearth.
Jerking his head in dismissal to the lad, the King started to hang the well-polished horn at his belt. Instead he took note of Robyn’s attention to it and spoke.
“A head forester’s horn, this, gifted from one of the King’s own at New Forest,” Alundel translated.
“I know,” Robyn answered and, when Alundel seemed surprised, supplied, “My da was head forester t’ his, ower Peak and Barnsdale, and had one not unlike to ’t.”
Gamelyn’s eyes slid towards Robyn. The King must have noticed, for this time he spoke to Gamelyn, whose brows arced upward—albeit slight, loath to any giveaway. He listened, nodded, and gave answer with soft and flawless courtesy.
“The Templar speaks of your father, says he knew and much admired him,” Alundel murmured to Robyn.
King Richard seemed intrigued, peppering Gamelyn with more queries, pointed amidst Gamelyn’s careful answers.
Alundel’s smile was beginning to curdle as they continued on. He remained quiet for some time, at Robyn’s puzzled look, relented. “He says I am”—a soft growl—“‘No use with man’s sport,’ and perhaps since the Templar knows the wolfshead so well, he can best translate such things.” Surely there was more, but the look upon Alundel’s face stirred an unexpected pity in Robyn’s breast, made him loath to ask. The trouvère continued, more a mutter. “Always it is so with him—yes, then no.”
“Va-t’en, mon cœur.” This as the King came over to Alundel and put a hand on his shoulder, turned him, and shooed him off.
Alundel went—not without a long look at Robyn.
Robyn shot a What t’ bloody damn? at Gamelyn, who seemed to be entertaining his own share of mystification. Even more startling, the surrounding cluster of men parted their ranks for the trouvère. There was absolutely no expression on their faces, which was fair unexpected from such a lot of opinionated busybodies.
In the odd stillness of Alundel’s wake, a sudden bedlam of barks and whines resounded. There was a shout, then a dismayed yelp—human, not canine.
Then a lot of ginormous hounds burst through the crowd, straight for Robyn.
- XXI -
GAMELYN’S FIRST thought: they were dead, and the King had gotten Alundel—mon cœur… my heart!—out of the way and given covert orders to have hounds set on them to do it.
His second was to draw his sword. A dagger. Something.
His third was to deny that with a Don’t be bloody ridiculous! as Richard stepped in front of the dogs, bellowing orders.
And his last thought, as the hounds poured around their master and went for Robyn, was Well, and isn’t that typical.
Because the six brindled hounds indeed leapt upon Robyn, but wriggling and whining like puppies instead of ferocious hunting alaunts the size of small ponies. One had dived shoulder-down into Robyn’s left foot to sprawl and display a pale grey belly; another was circling his knees, wagging its tail so hard that its hindquarters quaked back and forth; and the remaining four larked about, mincing like courtiers, darting to nip at Robyn’s fingers and grinning all the while.
The King bellowed a few names, but the alaunts, cheerfully oblivious, were intent upon their job with one stark difference: taking their prey down with doggy affection.
The King said a few choice curses, then planted fists on hips, barked a laugh—albeit exasperated—and drawled in the finest Norman French, “In my experience, one so likable to dogs is either a very good man, or a very clever magician.”
The surrounding men—and if most of those weren’t a lot of toadies, arse-kissers, and bootlickers, Gamelyn would swallow his best shiv—seemed torn between concurring laughter and apprehension.
None of it eased Gamelyn’s mind.
But he had to smirk as one of the hounds rose on his hind legs and plopped his forepaws on Robyn’s shoulders—every bit as tall as Robyn, which was no mean feat. The smirk widened as Robyn nipped that with a gruff “Gerroff, you!” and a shove. The dog obeyed, merely to crouch down and start a playful gnaw at Robyn’s boot toes.
“And there are my hounds, bred to hunt the wolf. Remind me, young wolf, never to hunt you with dogs should the need arise.” King Richard’s wry tone eased the surrounding tension; a few light laughs answered it, with some whispers back and forth from the arse-kissers in particular.
Robyn shot Gamelyn a puzzled look. Gamelyn quickly translated.
“I’ll try to heed that, milord King.” Robyn scratched at the largest hound’s ears.
The kennel master came bursting through with several leashes in hand, black hair plastered to his skull with sweat, and swearing in Catalan. He’d plainly been expecting disaster, stopped, and blinked upon seeing his charges fawning over a peasant.
“Come round them up, Simó! Before they degenerate into complete uselessness!” the King ordered. In the next moment, he turned back to Gamelyn, brusque but good-humoured. “My lord Templar, kindly advise your unlikely companion why he is here. It is not to suborn Our hounds—sweet Jesú, catch the silly buggar, Simó! The finest houndsman north of Valencia, and he can’t catch… Mercadier! Give him a hand, will you, man?”
With a smirk, Mercadier obeyed. A like smirk tilted Gamelyn’s lip at how the assemblage all made hasty room for the mercenary. King Richard didn’t deign to notice this, but he did aim a lift of eyebrows at Gamelyn, who didn’t wait to see if it signalled humour or affront.
“I would be honoured, my liege, to do so, yet would appreciate clarification of that reason.”
“I told your Masters why I requested the man’s company! Did they not tell you?”
